Two decades of disruptors

To celebrate our 20th anniversary, we take a retrospective look at some of the most noteworthy cars of the past two decades. Much has changed in the motoring world since 2004, especially with SUVs and crossovers becoming the most popular types of car, the rise of hybrid and electric vehicles, and the seismic shift Chinese cars have caused in the market.

PORSCHE CAYENNE

Sportscar purists may denounce an SUV’s right to call itself a Porsche, but the Cayenne is a money-spinner that allows the German carmaker to continue making iconic sportscars such as the 911. The Cayenne helped to create the sports-SUV genre, and its success inspired everyone from Aston Martin to Lamborghini to launch high-performance heavies of their own.

TOYOTA PRIUS

It sold only a handful of units in South Africa, but the Prius is important for being the world’s first mass-produced hybrid vehicle. The idea of pairing a petrol engine with an electric motor to reduce fuel consumption and emissions took hold with the Prius, helped by the number of celebrities — including Cameron Diaz and Leonardo DiCaprio — who bought it to parade their green credentials. More recently, the genre has been augmented by plug-in hybrids that can be juiced up at an external power source and drive longer on electric power than regular hybrids. The segment has experienced huge growth as a stepping stone to an all-electric future, with the most popular model locally the Toyota Corolla Cross hybrid.

TESLA

With a number of countries soon set to ban the sale of internal-combustion-engined vehicles, the world is moving inexorably to electric vehicles (EVs) and Tesla was a pioneer of battery-powered cars when it was founded 20 years ago. It launched the Roadster sports car as its first EV in 2008 and has since broadened the range to include sedans, SUVs, and a pickup. Elon Musk hasn’t brought his electric-car brand to South Africa and we don’t know if the Pretoria-born billionaire ever will, but Tesla popularised the global EV revolution and has sold around 5-million cars to date.

BMW M3

There are many powerful sports sedans, but the one probably most readily associated with the genre is a Bavarian car with a kidney-shaped grille — an air intake that has grown to contentiously large proportions in the latest iterations of the four-door M3 and its two-door M4 cousin. The bite behind the grille has also grown over the years, and the M3’s appeal has always been its ability to provide sportscar-like thrills with family-carrying practicality.

ROLLS-ROYCE BLACK BADGE

Rolls-Royce is the ultimate luxury status symbol and the Black Badge execution is the darker, edgier alter ego that has brought the brand to a wider and younger audience — a third of the Rolls-Royces sold today are Black Badges.

FORD RANGER RAPTOR

The metamorphosis of the blue-collar bakkie into a luxury high-performance adventure vehicle finds ultimate expression in the latest Ranger Raptor.

Powered by a roaring V6 turbocharged engine and perched on a rally-bred chassis, the second-generation Raptor can drive on just about any terrain, and fast. If you had to choose one vehicle for a dream garage, the Raptor might be at the top of many people’s list for its sheer breadth of capabilities: practicality, luxury, and the ability to shred sand dunes or dice Mustangs at the traffic lights. And even schlep garden rubble.

CHINESE CARS

Derided for being cheap and nasty just a few years ago, Chinese cars are unrecognisable from their former selves. The Chinese motor industry has improved in leaps and bounds in an astonishingly short time and is disrupting the market with modern cars that offer high-end features and good refinement at prices that undercut the establishment.Cars such as the 2024 Omoda C9 move “brand China” into the executive-motoring realm. It is one of the most opulent cars from behind the Red Curtain and takes on the likes of BMW and Mercedes-Benz with its high levels of luxury.